I have my "issues" with Radley Balko at CATO Institute, but this post is right on target...

May 31, 2005Time for Change at the CDC? The Center for Consumer Freedom filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CDC to release internal paperwork related to its study proclaiming 400,000 people die each year due to obesity. The agency has just posted that paperwork on its website, and what's revealed is rather striking. CCF pulls a few relevant exerpts:

So to recap, the director of the United States Center for Disease Control co-authored a flawed study, which led to massive anti-obesity hysteria, including public policy proposals that would have had a significant impact on how we produce, buy, and consume food. Though many of her colleagues knew her methodology was flawed, the study was published anyway, due either to bureaucratic snafus, fear from her colleagues of backlash, or that she simply ignored them (none of which is really acceptable from the agency in charge of protecting us from genuine threats to the public health). She then ignored months of criticism from credible scientists and researchers. When pressed, she revised the figure downward, though only slightly, and in a manner that didn't really address the crux of the criticism. Finally, an outside group of scientists was asked to conduct an independent study, and found that the real figure was one fifteenth the original. And she still insists that the agency's anti-obesity awareness campaigns be based upon the original, flawed statistic. I think you could make a pretty good case that Dr. Julie Gerberding isn't fit to lead the CDC.